Reaching For Almost
by Nilahxapiel
Summary: RaitoxL. They all looked a bit like him. The hair. The eyes. The skin. But they weren’t. No matter how much they resembled him…they could never, ever be him.


Title: **Reaching For Almost**

Categories: Angst

Rating: T

Pairing: Yagami Raito x L Ryuuzaki (unrequited)

Warning(s): Shounen ai, implied promiscuous gay sex, spoilers vol. 1-7 and L's real name.

Summary: RaitoxL. They all looked a bit like him. The hair. The eyes. The skin. But they weren't. No matter how they resembled him…they could never, ever be him.

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_Better never to have met you in my dream than to wake and reach for hands that are not there._ -Otomo No Yakamochi

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It was all his fault, you know.

His name was Yagami Raito, and he was quite miserable. And it was all his fault. He was unhappy because someone else, L Lawliet (but Raito did not know him by this name), was no longer living. He had died, quite some time ago actually. A sad story for Yagami Raito, and everyone he knew pitied him for the death of his friend. There were quite a few things that his family and friends didn't know, however.

Firstly, they didn't know he didn't love his fiancé Amane Misa. She was sweet and beautiful and rich and famous –what was there not to love? She was not the brightest of all beings (as Raito undoubtedly was) but she was not entirely thick either. His family thought them a cute couple, and his co-workers envied him. But Yagami Raito did not love Misa, he didn't even like her. The only reason he kept her around was because he was useful to him.

Also, they didn't know Yagami Raito was Kira. Kira, the mass murderer for over six years, killing criminals by the bucket load. Thousands and thousands. Effortlessly. It meant nothing to him to take a life, because of course, the people _deserved _it.

And Yagami Raito was always right.

The reason Raito kept Misa was because she provided a function that he did not, could not, and would not have. She had eyes that allowed him to utilize the Death Note in ways that Raito couldn't, because he did not want the penalty that went along with the eyes. So the first two things that no one knew about Raito were connected.

They didn't know he'd cared about L. At least, not like _that. _Actually, for quite some time, he himself hadn't known it. Even after L had passed on. He hadn't even recognized the bothersome longing for L's company to be anything more than boredom.

Because L was the only thing that wasn't boring to Raito. L (or, Ryuuzaki as Raito called him in his mind still) was the detective trying to catch Kira. Raito. And so, he was a liability. He had to be done away with, and Raito made sure of it. He did not realize that he'd cared about L as anything more than a pass time until over a year after his death.

The death which Yagami Raito had caused.

Even after he'd comprehended in some deep crevasse of his vast, brilliant mind, he had not truly acknowledged it. Instead, he buried it in mountains of denial and –eventually –other people. Other _men. _Because, man or woman, sex was sex and Raito was above everyone –a legend in his own mind before he ever became a legend in reality –so did it truly matter just what gender he cruelly played with to make himself feel better?

Of course it didn't.

But it wouldn't due for others to know of these experiences. Because they might not take to it, especially not his fiancé, who was unquestionably female. It was a clandestine thing, and not something Raito indulged in too often. Once a month. Once every two months. Until he found someone to his liking. And he _was _fastidious.

Dark hair. Dark eyes. Pale skin. Skinny. _Always. _

Raito, even for all his astounding observation skills, let those details pass. He did not identify truly in his mind that these men looked similar to someone. Because L Lawliet had dark hair, dark eyes and pale skin –and he was thin and bony and his structure was almost crooked. It was hard to look like that, and not be rather homely. L Lawliet pulled it off, somehow. Not that Raito had ever thought about that.

Raito didn't really talk to them much. They were all _stupid. _Absolute imbeciles really, but they presented him with something that was so _close _to…to…to_ something. _Something wonderful that was just out of his grasp. It was a while after he'd started (years) finding those men that he'd admitted the fact that they…they sort of…

They all looked a bit like _him_. Ryuuzaki.

The hair; black silky locks piled on his head in uneven chops of disarray. Raito had never ran his fingers through L's hair, but he did remember a man's hair that was oh so close to that. Never L's hair. But _almost. _

The eyes; deep twin pools of ink shining with the intellect that match his own. Black mirrors that reflected his own image back at him when he peered into them. Large, wide eyes, awkward on his round face, underlined in black bags originated from insomnia. He had never looked into those eyes as L's world exploded in ecstasy. But he had looked into another man's black eyes as he came. Never L's eyes. But almost.

The skin; as pale and as smooth as the petal of a white magnolia, never creasing with the pointlessness of facial expression. His thin, gentle hands, lithe and fragile and yet strong. Raito had never touched that skin kindly nor held those hands in his. But he had ran his hands along another's body, a man with smooth, pale skin. He had held another's delicate, dexterous hands to the mattress. Never L's hands. Never L's skin. But almost.

Almost was something Raito had never considered worth anything. It meant nothing, because you _got _nothing. Almost was for those who never made it anywhere. But in this way, and only this way, almost was enough. Because he was never going to get the real thing. They might appear alike on the surface…

But they weren't. No matter how much they looked or sounded or seemed like L, no matter what hair color they had, or eye shape or skin pigment – because…

They could never, ever be him.

L was dead, along with Ryuuzaki, and every alias he had ever claimed. Raito (although deemed the new L for political appearance) was not him. Ryuuzaki had passed on years ago, he was now somewhere else that was not Heaven nor Hell. He was, irretrievably, gone. Departed from the living world, and why?

Because Yagami Raito had killed him.

He hadn't _really _won.

But almost.

The murderer of thousands of people, a massacre of a supernatural kind, a killer with no blood on his hands –was miserable, because of the death of one person. Intimidated by the threat that was L Lawliet, he'd struck the man down. He'd ridded himself of the man, causing Kira to succeed in his efforts, but for him to become silently, invisibly dejected.

It was all his fault, you know.

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**_Love never dies a natural death. It dies because we don't know how to replenish its source. It dies of blindness and errors and betrayals. It dies of illness and wounds; it dies of weariness, of witherings, of tarnishings._ -Anais Nin

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Omg, how did I write this? Is it as sad as it seems to me? I actually cried writing it…god I'm such a sap…Please, please, please tell me what you think. It's a bit strange…and so depressing…but I'm actually sorta happy with how it turned out. You? 

Nilah


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